It’s Miller Time On Us

Last Tuesday, the people spoke.

We spoke loud. We turned out both houses of Congress and handed them to the other side. Papers are calling it the biggest swing in half a century.

Three days later, we got our answer. On Friday the president fired his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. In her place, he named Stephen Miller. Miller takes over tomorrow morning, Monday, November 9.

I’ll tell you how I read that. We sent a message, and the finger got flipped right back at us. Not in words. In a name. The man who built the toughest parts of this administration is now running the whole building.

You don’t have to take my word for what that means. CBS called it a doubling down, despite the voters’ rejection on Tuesday. The Washington Post called it a gamble on pushing the agenda further right. That’s not one side talking. That’s the plain reading.

Some of you know Stephen Miller’s name. For those who don’t, here’s the short of it. He’s been with Trump since the 2016 campaign. He started as a speechwriter. He’s the architect of the immigration enforcement and deportation program.

It isn’t about immigration alone. It’s about how this White House plans to govern from here on.

Reuters reported that since April, Miller has been working with budget director Russ Vought and the White House lawyers. Their job was to find things the president can do without Congress. Executive actions on immigration, on tariffs, on housing costs, on federal spending.

They started that work back in April. That tells you they saw this coming. They knew there was a chance the people would take Congress away. So they built a plan to go around Congress before the votes were even cast.

Now that plan has a new boss. The man who drew up the work-around is the man running the White House. That’s the signal. And we’d be fools to ignore it.

So what do we do? We don’t panic. We don’t throw up our hands. We do what the people are supposed to do in a country like ours. We watch. And when something needs stopping, we push the people we elected to stop it.

I think of it like pulling teeth. You don’t pull every tooth in one go. You can’t. You pull them one at a time. Each one you get out, the bite gets weaker. Two years of that, and there’s not much bite left.

Congress can’t just cancel an executive order with a vote. The president can veto that. And overriding a veto takes two-thirds of both houses. The Democrats won big, but they won’t have two-thirds of the Senate. They’ll have somewhere around 54 to 56 seats.

So the tools are slower than that. But they’re real. The first one is money. Congress writes the budget. An executive order that needs money to run can starve if the money isn’t there.

The second tool is the subpoena. Starting in January, the new majority gets the power to call people in and make them answer under oath. Executive actions can’t hide an administration from that. Reuters said so plainly back on Wednesday.

The third tool is the courts. Executive orders get challenged all the time. Some stand. Some fall. Every one that falls is a tooth pulled.

The fourth tool is daylight. Things done in the dark don’t hold up well once people are watching. And that’s where you and I come in.

Now here’s what worries me most. Congress doesn’t change hands until January 3. That leaves about eight weeks where the old Congress is still sitting. The work-around plan is ready, and nobody has subpoena power yet.

Those eight weeks are when I’d expect the push. If you were holding a stack of executive orders you’d spent months writing, when would you sign them? Before the new sheriff shows up, not after.

So watch the next eight weeks. Watch what gets signed. Watch what gets moved fast. Write it down. When January comes, the new Congress is going to need a list. Let’s make sure the people help write it.

And don’t forget the dates we just talked about. House Democrats pick their leaders November 18 and 19. Senate Democrats pick theirs in early December. Those leaders will decide how hard this Congress pushes back.

If you want a Congress that pulls teeth, tell your member now. Call before the vote. Ask them, out loud and on the record, how they plan to stand up to governing by executive order. A leader who won’t answer that question isn’t the one we need right now.

I’ll say one more thing, and then I’ll let you go. This isn’t about hating anybody. It’s about the people’s vote meaning something. We said what we wanted on Tuesday. If a vote gets answered with a work-around, the vote matters less. And a vote that matters less is a country that belongs to us less.

So yes, it’s Miller Time. But don’t mistake it for quitting time. The round is on us, and we’re the ones paying the tab. That means it’s on us to watch, too.

Pull one tooth at a time. Keep at it for two years. Watch and stop. Watch and stop. That’s the job now.

The vote’s been counted. The watching starts tomorrow morning.

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This post was drafted with AI governed assistance and reviewed and directed by Michael S. Faust Sr. before publication.

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